Agnes Owens

by Agnes Owens

  The Warehouse

  The middle-aged couple sat with their backs against the wall. Some drunks against the opposite wall shouted on them to come over.

  ‘Ignore them. They’ll only be wanting some of our drink. I thought that fellow with the mouth-organ would have come back this evening. Still, it’s early yet.’

  ‘What fellow?’ asked the man.

  ‘The one who was here last Friday. Remember he played some good, old-fashioned tunes. There was one I liked in particular. It was kind of Mexican –’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘At the time, you said you knew it. You were even singing the words –’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ said the man emphatically. ‘What’s more important is this bottle’s nearly empty. We’ll have to get another.’

  The woman pursed her lips. ‘There’s plenty left in that bottle. Don’t be so desperate –’ She broke off when she saw the warehouse door slide open and a young woman stand within the gap.

  ‘Come in and close the door. There’s a draught!’ she shouted.

  The young woman closed the door behind her then called out that she couldn’t see a thing.

  ‘You will when you get used to it. How do you think we manage?’

  The young woman made her way across the floor, sat beside them and explained that she’d only looked in because she’d heard voices. The older woman said, ‘That’s all right. It’s a free country. So what’s your name?’

  ‘Jessica.’

  ‘That’s a pretty name.’

  The woman thought that seen close up this Jessica looked much more mature than from a distance, with her dyed-blonde hair and heavily pencilled eyebrows.

  ‘My name’s Mavis and this is my friend Albert,’ she said, gesturing towards the man. He had glanced briefly at the young woman when she came in but now sat staring at the floor. Mavis offered Jessica the bottle.

  ‘Thanks all the same but I’d rather have a temazepam or a fag if you’ve got one to spare.’

  ‘We’ve no temazepam but it so happens I’ve got fags,’ said Mavis, bringing a packet of Embassy Regal from her coat pocket. She offered it to Jessica then Albert before taking one herself. After the initial puff she began to cough.

  ‘These fags will be the death of me.’

  ‘Don’t get my hopes built up,’ said Albert suddenly, winking at Jessica. She gave him a polite smile back. Mavis asked him why he looked so pleased all of a sudden when he hadn’t had a civil word to say all day.

  ‘Me pleased?’ he said, surprised. ‘What makes you think I’m pleased?’

  ‘Never mind,’ she said, becoming downcast for no reason she could think of, then suddenly furious because Jessica had turned to the drunks on the opposite side of the warehouse and was actually smiling at them.

  ‘Here, don’t you be giving them alckies the eye or they’ll be over like a shot and we definitely don’t want that. At least I don’t.’

  ‘Are you talking to me?’ said Jessica, her eyes glittering narrowly.

  ‘Who else?’

  Jessica made to rise. ‘I’m not stopping to be insulted by the likes of you.’

  ‘Don’t then.’

  By this time Mavis had taken a strong dislike to this young woman, who she thought looked more and more like a tart with every minute that passed. She turned to Albert.

  ‘You can see she’s only out to cause trouble.’

  ‘Leave her alone and mind your own bloody business,’ he said.

  Rage boiled up inside her. She lifted the bottle and smashed it against the wall, splashing it with wine. Some dribbled to the floor. There was a silence in which the three of them stared at the small, dark-red puddle.

  Finally Albert said, ‘There must have been at least a good third left in that bottle.’ He stood up and Mavis thought he was going to strike her. Instead he went over to Jessica and asked if she would like to come outside.

  ‘If you want,’ she said jumping up and taking his arm.

  Open-mouthed, in a state of shock, Mavis watched them leave. By the time she’d pulled herself together and hurried out after them they had vanished. She hung about for a good while in the hope Albert would regret what he’d done and come back. Perhaps the whole thing had been his idea of a joke or even a punishment. Albert could be very devious. No one knew better than she how devious, but when time passed without any sign of him, she was forced to move away, unsure of everything.

  Fifteen minutes later she entered the licensed grocer to buy another bottle. It was all she could think to do although she hadn’t intended drinking again so soon.

  ‘Your friend, he is not with you this evening?’ asked Abdul, who took a personal interest in the affairs of his customers.

  Mavis explained that it appeared he’d left her for another woman.

  ‘But that is terrible. What has come over him?’

  She then went on to say that it must be because of his age for according to what she’d heard, lots of men leave their wives or partners for younger women when they reach a certain age: the male menopause, it’s called, and as the woman he’d gone off with appeared young enough to be his daughter, that’s all she could put it down to.

  ‘Perhaps he will regret it later on,’ said Abdul, shaking his head in dismay, then wrapping up the bottle in brown paper and giving it an extra twist at the top. Mavis always felt like telling him not to bother with the paper as it only got thrown away but she never did in case she hurt his feelings. She went out the door, promising to let him know of any further developments. Outside she threw away the paper, unscrewed the top of the bottle and took a long gulp of the wine. It immediately put new heart into her. She began to see the affair from a different angle. If Albert never came back she would be better off without him in many ways. She wouldn’t have to put up with his foul moods when he had drunk too much, nor would she have to keep him going in it when she’d hardly enough for herself. Nor would she be obliged to have sex when she didn’t feel like it. She hadn’t felt like it for years, come to think of it. There were hundreds of things she wouldn’t feel obliged to do in order to shut his mouth. Why, life without Albert might not be so bad after all. Instead of spending half her next giro on him, she would get something decent to wear from the Oxfam shop, then have her hair done – nothing fancy, a cut and blow dry would do her fine. Then after that (her heart pounded at the idea) she would go to the local housing department and ask for her name to be put down on the list for a council flat. It was time she got in off the streets and started having a decent life for a change.

  As she walked along the pavement, her head quite dizzy with thinking about the great possibilities that lay ahead, she bumped into a woman who told her to watch where she was going then tried to push her off the pavement. Mavis’s mood quickly changed.

  ‘Who do you think you’re shoving?’

  ‘Scum,’ said the woman over her shoulder, which depressed Mavis. She recognised the truth of the statement but if Albert had been with her the situation would never have arisen. Coming to a row of tenements, she paused outside an entrance wondering whether to have a drink inside rather than risk taking it in the open, when a young man came from the building and told her to beat it.

  ‘I was only looking for an address,’ she said as he brushed past. He exuded an air of violence which left her dithering and too frightened to move. Her previous confidence vanished. The truth of the matter, she told herself sadly, was that on her own she could scarcely walk two steps without somebody picking on her. What a fool she’d been! She’d just have to throw her pride to the wind and go and find Albert then persuade him to come back to her. She’d buy him all the drink he needed and he could bring Jessica with him if that’s what he wanted. Anything was better than being on her own. He couldn’t be far away. She’d try the old warehouse first. The chances were he might be there already, waiting for her to bring along the bottle.

  ‘Albert,’ she called, entering the warehouse and leaving the door open so
that she could see her way. There was no answer but it was still early, perhaps not eight o’clock yet. She reached the spot where they usually sat, and took a small sip of wine, assuring herself she would make it last until Albert arrived. Otherwise he wouldn’t be pleased. To pass the time she smoked three cigarettes. After finishing the third she’d become so jumpy that without thinking she put the bottle to her mouth and took a long swig and became so fuddled that she forgot all about Albert and Jessica. The only thing in her mind now was the Mexican tune the man with the mouth-organ had played the previous Friday. The words that had eluded her before came into her head quite easily.

  Ah, the mission bells told me that I must not stay,

  South of the border, down Mexico way.

  In her cracked voice she sang the whole verse and continued singing it over and over again. She stopped once when she thought she heard footsteps outside.

  ‘Is that you, Albert?’ she called, but when there was no reply she simply carried on singing, enjoying the sound of her voice and only breaking off now and again to put the bottle to her mouth. She finally stopped when it grew so dark that she couldn’t see a thing. This gave her a creepy feeling. She picked up the bottle and discovered it was empty. Immediately she felt horrifyingly sober. The only thing to do was to try and sleep if she could.

  ‘Dear God,’ she prayed as she sometimes did when desperate enough, ‘just let me sleep through this night and I’ll not touch another drop. Or at least,’ she amended, not wanting to commit herself entirely, ‘I’ll cut it down a bit.’

  After that she lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and as if in answer to her prayer her eyelids began to droop. She settled back against the wall and fell asleep, the cigarette dangling from her lips. It dropped onto her coat. The smouldering tip touched particles of fluff which eventually burst into flames.

  When Shankland Comes

  It was a raw March morning when Ivy came into the village hotel where she was employed as a cleaner. Sometimes she served in the public bar, but at present she wasn’t needed there, for trade was always poor after the New Year. In summer, though, the hotel did well. It stood on the main road and was a good stopping point for tourists on their way to the mountains and lochs beyond. The village itself could be described as sleepy. Some folks said it was merely dull. On the side of the road near the hotel was a long stretch of mansions; on the other, a grocery store and a small scheme of neat, one-storey council houses. Behind the scheme stood a church dated 1894 and refaced with pink modern brick. There was no school in the village. The kids, big and small, travelled by bus to the small town of Blairmaddie five miles away.

  There were only two customers in the public bar: Geordie Forsyth, the builder, and Sam Ferguson, who was elderly and toothless. Geordie Forsyth watched Ivy wipe the bar counter. She was tall and angular-faced with an abundance of dark curling hair and a slim figure under a green nylon overall. Though almost forty, older men – including Geordie Forsyth – found her attractive.

  ‘Ye look fair scunnered,’ Geordie said.

  ‘That’s no crime,’ said Ivy, tossing her head. Her mind was on Dennett, her seventeen-year-old son. He had refused to get out of bed when she called him up for work and he’d only started the job on the farm two days before. Admittedly, it was on the side and the wage was poor, but added to his social security money, she thought he would be doing fine. When she called him a lazy bastard, he’d said, well, it wasn’t his fault if he was a bastard, was it? The remark had rankled. It still rankled.

  ‘Gie us a smile,’ said Geordie, when she lifted his glass to wipe under it. ‘Ye’re braw when ye smile.’

  ‘I’m no’ in the mood for smilin’,’ said Ivy; nevertheless, her mouth softened. She liked Geordie well enough. He wasn’t bad-looking, in a coarse way, and he had a steady job, which said a lot in his favour, but she didn’t trust him. He was a hard drinker. Everybody knew that was why his wife had left him. Anyway, she’d never had any time for men since Dennett was born.

  ‘Whit she needs is a man,’ said old Sam, wheezing with laughter.

  ‘That I don’t need,’ said Ivy, rubbing away furiously. ‘Besides there’s no men in this place, at least no’ what I’d call one.’

  ‘Come roon the back and I’ll soon show ye,’ said Geordie.

  Sam laughed again. Ivy tutted and said to Geordie, ‘You should be at your buildin’ instead of standin’ here drinking. I don’t know how you get away wi’ it.’

  ‘Because I’m ma ain boss,’ said Geordie complacently, just as Jim Carr, the barman, came in.

  ‘Hurry up wi’ that counter so as I can get servin’,’ he told Ivy. Geordie put down his empty tumbler on the counter and walked out. Old Sam faded into the background, holding a glass which still contained an inch of beer.

  ‘Who is there to serve?’ snapped Ivy, and headed for the kitchen. It was almost ten o’clock and time for her cup of tea. Going down the hallway she met Walter Sproul, the manager. Although he barely glanced at her, she noted the bags under his eyes. Likely been on the bottle last night, she thought, and fighting with his wife. They could be heard first thing in the morning, either brawling at each other or thumping on their bed in a frenzy of lovemaking. Ivy despised Sproul and also that wife of his. She did absolutely nothing in the hotel except come down the stairs in the afternoon, her hair all frizzed up and her make-up thick, and drive off somewhere in her blue Mercedes. Of course when Shankland came it was a different story. Then you’d see her hovering behind Sproul as he spoke to Shankland with a smarmy smile on his face. Albert Shankland had been manager when Ivy first started work twenty years ago. She had been taken on part time as a waitress, then full time when he’d asked her to clean. The hotel had done well in those days. It had always been a pleasure to work for Shankland. Eventually he had bought the hotel and then another one farther south. Soon after, he’d moved south himself, appointing a new manager in his place. It had been a bitter blow, but that was a long time ago. Many managers had come and gone before Sproul took over. Sproul, though, was the worst. She wished Shankland would pay the hotel one of his flying visits to study the books and give a pep talk to the staff. He always took her aside and spoke to her in a warm and friendly way. Once he even enquired about Dennett. ‘He’s fine,’ she’d answered, not knowing what else to say.

  In the big kitchen, Babs, the cook, was pouring out two cups of tea. Ivy began to spread butter thickly on a roll.

  ‘That Sproul gets on ma goat,’ Babs said.

  ‘What’s he done this time?’ said Ivy.

  ‘He says we’ll have tae put less meat in the sandwiches.’ Staring hard at Ivy’s roll, she added, ‘He’ll go mad if he sees that.’

  ‘I’m no’ takin’ any meat,’ Ivy pointed out.

  ‘I’ve got tae account for the butter as well,’ said Babs, her voice aggrieved.

  Ivy shrugged then sat up on a high stool with her back facing the table and her legs crossed. Babs frowned at the sight of Ivy’s slim legs. Her own were short and fat. In fact she was fat all over, with a stomach that bulged out under her white overall. Her broad face was red from the heat of the kitchen.

  ‘By the way,’ she said, ‘are you goin’ tae the dance in the church hall on Saturday?’

  Ivy wrinkled her nose slightly. ‘I don’t know. They’re gettin’ awful stale nowadays.’

  ‘Ye always get a laugh at somethin’, and the punch is free.’

  ‘I’m no’ that desperate for a drink,’ said Ivy.

  ‘There’s nothin’ much else happenin’ in this dump,’ said Babs bitterly.

  ‘If I go, it means that Dennett’s in the house by himsel’ until dead late.’

  ‘Surely Dennett’s auld enough to stay in by hissel’?’

  ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ said Ivy, picturing Dennett bringing his pals in and drinking cans of lager.

  Ivy was washing her cup when Jim burst into the kitchen and asked her to take the bar while he had some tea, since Betty, the lounge bar w
aitress, hadn’t come in yet.

  ‘I don’t know how she’s kept on,’ said Ivy. ‘She’s always late.’

  ‘And she’s that bloody cheeky wi’ it tae,’ said Babs.

  ‘Yous two are just jealous because she’s sexy lookin’,’ Jim said.

  Ivy and Babs laughed simultaneously. ‘She’s as sexy lookin’ as a coo lookin’ ower a dyke,’ said Ivy.

  There was nobody in the bar except old Sam, still holding his tumbler with its inch of beer.

  ‘Finish that pint and get anither one,’ said Ivy. ‘This is no’ a bus shelter you’re staunin’ in.’

  ‘I cannae afford anither one,’ said Sam. ‘I’ve only got ma pension tae keep me.’

  ‘Aye, I know,’ said Ivy sighing. She was about to give him a free half-pint when Betty came in, her blonde hair spiked at the top and long and flat at the back.

  ‘I slept in,’ she explained, as old Sam gave her a startled look. He finished his beer and walked stiffly away.

  ‘I’m sure that hair-do must have taken a good hour to fix,’ said Ivy.

  ‘No’ really,’ said Betty. ‘It’s quite easy when ye know how.’

  Sensing that Betty was about to launch into a long explanation about why she’d slept in, Ivy said quickly, ‘Now that you’re in, I’m away to clean the toilets.’

  The day passed slowly for Ivy. Business was still poor in the afternoon, apart from a few young lads from the community programme who came in to order coffee. She looked at them enviously as they came through the hotel door wearing their donkey jackets. She wished Dennett could have been one of them. Of course he was too young for the community programme which mainly consisted of doing old folks’ gardens. In bad weather they hung around the hotel entrance, laughing loud and inanely, but at least they were obliged to get up in the morning. Dennett had still been in bed when she went home at lunch-time.

  Sproul’s wife left as usual in her Mercedes and Sproul went prowling about the hotel like a pregnant cat, his face sullen and brooding as if looking for someone to lash out at. Ivy affected to look busy by polishing the hallway twice before she went through to the kitchen to scrub the big table. Babs had gone off duty at four o’clock and the room was empty. Ivy stared up through the kitchen window at the tormented-looking sky, thinking that it wouldn’t be long till summer when the place would be packed out.